Mountain Bell
CASE 8-1
Mountain Bell
Telephone Company
Jim Martin, marketing research manager for Mountain
Bell, studied the final research design for the hospital administrator study that had been prepared by Industrial Surveys, a marketing research firm in Denver. He realized that he needed to formulate some recommendations with respect to some very specific questions.
Should individual personal interviewers be used as suggested by Industrial Surveys, or should a series of one to six focus-group interviews be used instead? Was the questionnaire satisfactory? Should individual questions be added, deleted, or modified? Should the flow be changed? Exactly who should be sampled, and what should the sample size be?
Research Setting
About 20 field salespeople at Mountain Bell Telephone Company were involved in sales of communication equipment and services to the health-care industry. Because of job rotations and reorganizations, few salespeople had been in their present positions for more than three years. They were expected to determine customer needs and problems and to design responsive communication systems. In addition, there was a health-care industry manager, Andy
Smyth, who had overall responsibility for the healthcare industry marketing effort at Mountain Bell, although none of the sales personnel reported directly to him. He prepared a marketing action plan and worked to see that it was implemented. The marketing action plan covered
Sales objective by product and by segment
Sales training programs
Development of sales support materials and information Andy Smyth was appointed only recently to his current position, although he had worked in the healthcare market for several years while with the Eastern
Bell Telephone Company. Thus, he did have some firsthand knowledge of customer concerns. Further, there was an AT&T marketing plan for the health-care industry which included an industry profile; however, it lacked the detailed information needed,
Mountain Bell
Telephone Company
Jim Martin, marketing research manager for Mountain
Bell, studied the final research design for the hospital administrator study that had been prepared by Industrial Surveys, a marketing research firm in Denver. He realized that he needed to formulate some recommendations with respect to some very specific questions.
Should individual personal interviewers be used as suggested by Industrial Surveys, or should a series of one to six focus-group interviews be used instead? Was the questionnaire satisfactory? Should individual questions be added, deleted, or modified? Should the flow be changed? Exactly who should be sampled, and what should the sample size be?
Research Setting
About 20 field salespeople at Mountain Bell Telephone Company were involved in sales of communication equipment and services to the health-care industry. Because of job rotations and reorganizations, few salespeople had been in their present positions for more than three years. They were expected to determine customer needs and problems and to design responsive communication systems. In addition, there was a health-care industry manager, Andy
Smyth, who had overall responsibility for the healthcare industry marketing effort at Mountain Bell, although none of the sales personnel reported directly to him. He prepared a marketing action plan and worked to see that it was implemented. The marketing action plan covered
Sales objective by product and by segment
Sales training programs
Development of sales support materials and information Andy Smyth was appointed only recently to his current position, although he had worked in the healthcare market for several years while with the Eastern
Bell Telephone Company. Thus, he did have some firsthand knowledge of customer concerns. Further, there was an AT&T marketing plan for the health-care industry which included an industry profile; however, it lacked the detailed information needed,